I scored an 89 on the mock lab which is far better that I had hoped for. For those of you who have been following these updates, you’ll have noticed that I have been stuck on a readiness level of 2 (out of 10) since I started posting these updates. That level has been my subjective perception of my ability to pass the lab. I’ve decided to quantify that value a bit. My ideal level of readiness will be achieved when I can score a 90 or above on an IE mock lab with a difficulty level of 10. So I should be able to figure out my readiness based on the following equation:

Between passing my written and nearly killing myself on labbing and the first mock lab, I forgot to post a followup to this post. My boss signed off on travel, expenses, and (most importantly) tuition for Internetwork Expert’s Mock Lab Workshop in Reno this June. I really wanted to attend this training so I am extremely happy that I was able to make this workshop my training for the year. I even offered to cover travel expenses, but it turns out that I won’t have to. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!! [I have no idea what that means other than my six-year-old son likes to say it a lot] :-)

Like I said, I really feel like this training will help me out a lot towards getting my digits. I was prepared to cover this out of pocket, but I’m glad that I don’t have to as the cost for this training is enough to cover a very nice trip or a pretty nice used vehicle:

By the time I get to Reno I will have finished 4 of the Graded Mock Labs. I’m hoping that by the end of the workshop I’ll get some good feedback as to whether or not I’m “lab ready”. I’ll have a month to concentrate on my weak points before my first (and hopefully last) trip to San Jose in July.

The only downside to this is that I need to complete about 10 more IE labs (plus 3 more Graded Mock Labs) before the Mock Lab Workshop in June. I’m going to probably take some more vacation time in the next two weeks and try to knock out some more labs in a short period of time. Doing one or two (two is a stretch) labs per weekend isn’t going to cut it.

Special thanks to Gosia at IE. She read my original post and emailed me telling me that she would save a spot for me in the June class (I was wading though the red tape at work concerning how I would pay for the class). I am very thankful to her as the class filled up soon after I posted.